Wireless networks often transmit data using radio frequency signals. While a wireless network typically covers one or more local or campus networks, with sufficient broadcast power or signal repeaters, the wireless network may cover a very expansive area. In a typical wireless network, coordinating communication between addressable users and interfaces involves similar challenges as confronting in any general communication system (e.g., authorization, load balancing, and quality of service, among other things). Wireless systems, however, often also must contend with challenges associated with transmitting data through the air using radio frequency communication links (e.g., broadcast or unicast). When establishing communication links wirelessly, the risk of unauthorized access increases, especially when security mechanisms place undue reliance on user-generated passwords or other measures that can easily be compromised. As wireless services and wireless devices become more prevalent, these challenges may be compounded as ever larger networks must be managed securely and reliably.
One area of focus for wireless network security relates to positional systems that track positional location information for wireless devices. Adequately tracking the positional information, however, often requires a continuous communication link between the positional system and a device being tracked. For example, problems may occur when a communication link breaks or otherwise becomes interrupted, causing the positional system to lose contact with a tracked wireless device. Sometimes, however, such interruptions may be used as a security measure, as a specific wireless access zone (e.g., a cellular zone) may be used to fiercely manage boundaries of a network (e.g., to exclude non-subscriber traffic).
As such, positional systems have led to more localized applications focusing, for example, on campus-based systems and corporate-based systems. In a corporate-based system, for example, many devices capable of wireless communication may be designed for convenient portability, creating difficulties with dynamically locating and authenticating such devices. For example, designing a secure solution for highly portable wireless devices may include granting access to certain areas, or limiting access to an area based on temporal restrictions, or other location-dependent factors.
However, in organizational environments (e.g., campus or corporate networks), wireless devices may be highly portable in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space. As such, security in these environments often depends on positional systems having reliable positional management in three dimensions. Unlike a typical two-dimensional system, which may easily locate a wireless device on a two-dimensional grid using a two-dimensional map overlay, an organizational-based wireless positional system may need to manage a three-dimensional space (e.g., an office building or other edifice where a wireless device easily moves between floors). Existing systems, however, often limit measures that regulate access to a wireless network based on two-dimensions.
Existing systems suffer from these and other problems.